Archives for November 2020

On this webpage: https://www.aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2011/04/stond-wel-moder-under-rode.html I discovered a medieval English song: Stand well, Moder, under Rode. You can find this song in several manuscripts after 1250. It is modelled directly on the 11-stanza Latin sequence Stabat juxta Christi crucem.
The song invites, like the Stabat Mater, to sympathise with Mary and her Son, dying on the cross (rode). Meditation on their sorrows, as a way of entering into the experience of the Crucifixion, was an increasingly popular devotional theme in Middle Ages.
The situation is being represented even in a more poignant way while Mary and Christ talk to each other. Their tender speeches are intensely intimate, vivid and believable. Christ is trying to comfort her and explaining the necessity of his death: saving mankind. But his mother is unable to look beyond his immediate suffering. Christ is asking an impossible, paradoxical emotional response from her: to rejoice as she sees her son dying. Text and music are full of deep emotion, sorrow and love. Such a lively and credible dialogue you can’t find in the old Latin hymns.
In the Middle Ages it is believed that Mary suffered no pain in her pregnancy and childbirth. She felt the anguish of motherhood at last when her son died. Therefore, Stabat Mater and Stond well, Moder, both are meant to support all mothers who suffer because of the losss of their children. The last two stanzas are about the joyous outcome of the Passion, and the poem ends with the narrator petitioning for mercy. Two manuscripts preserve the song with musical notes.

For music, text,  translation, explanation and beautiful images of Mary at the foot of the cross, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the fourteenth century, please see: https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2011/04/stond-wel-moder-under-rode.html
For me, the most moving sung version, is that by Stephanie Prewitt and Daniel Johnson (also playing the psaltery), a sober and personal performance. I contacted Stephanie Prewitt and she was kind enough to share the video with me. Thanks!

Mr. and Mrs. Lee from Baltimore were kind enough to inform me about an extraordinary cd with a Stabat Mater:  plain song in alternation with organ, the famous restored barrel organ in the church of St. Chaffrey! In this Stabat Mater, the organ parts sound like a Mozart opera and the final parts, after stanza 18 is a note for note transcription of one of Cherubini’s aria’s from Le nozze di Figaro: Voi che sapete! A barrel organ in church? I think it is very unusual, and the Mozart style of the organ pieces alternating the Stabat Mater stanza’s, it is fascinating. The English text on the cover of the cd says:

The style of the pieces notated on the perforated rolls of parchment of the
church barrel organ of St-Chaffrey illustrates the ‘present state’ of liturgi-
cal music at the time, which some of the reforming Benedictine monks and
other nineteenth-century musicians unhesitatingly called decadent. They
were quite virulent in their denunciation of secular music, particularly
opera, in worship. They condemned singers who made a habit of accenting
each note of the plainchant melody, sometimes likening the result to the
cries of animals! The most flagrant example is the Stabat Mater, in which
the versets played alternately by the organ are really Mozartian operatic
paraphrases, and on one occasion (the twenty-seventh verset) a note for
note transcription of one of Cherubino’s arias!

I would like to have more detailed information about this Stabat. Anyone who can help me? Thanks!

A friend of mine who lives in Cape Town has always been interested in and supportive as for my Stabat Mater website. He told me about a special Pergolesi Stabat Mater performance with dance by Cape Town Opera, Cape Town City Ballet and Camerata Tinta Barocca. This project provides an emotional and artistic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, conceptualized specifically for filming and digital dissemination. I was delighted to buy a ticket and could not wait watching the video! It is fascinating: a baroque orchestra and two opera singers are joined by six dancers in a huge studio, the floor marked in squares to which each performer is confined to enable social distancing. Two dancers, Jan and Nicolas, co-habited during lockdown in South Africa and were therefore the only dancers to touch each other in the show. This wonderful work was choreographed, remotely via video call from London by Mthuthuzeli November (he just won the 2020 Olivier Award!). The performers only came together at the last minute.
I watched the video several times and I love it, it is moving and comforting right now when theaters and concert halls are closed for such a long time! And… I could not help thinking of another dance Stabat Mater by Pergolesi, a pre-covid one!

I got in touch with the artistic director of Cape Town Opera Mr. Matthew Wild and he was kind enough to arrange for Wyrd Films to share a part of the performance for my blog and site. In the video The concept Mr. Wild gives a brief introduction to the performance.The video is abridged to 23 minutes for potential television broadcast. Seven of twelve parts are performed:

I     Stabat Mater (soprano and mezzo-soprano)
IV  Quae moerebat et dolebat (mezzo-soprano)
V    Vidit suum dulcem natum (soprano)
VII Eja mater (soprano and mezzo-soprano)
IX   Sancta mater (soprano and mezzo-soprano)
XI   Inflammatus et accensus (soprano and mezzo-soprano)
XII  Quando corpus (soprano and mezzo-soprano)

You can still book tickets to watch the video till the end of November at: tickets.computicket.com